


The Mulder Experiment

by TabithaJean



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Fox Mulder Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Young Fox Mulder, teena mulder - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28798620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TabithaJean/pseuds/TabithaJean
Summary: A typical Thursday evening for fifteen year old Fox Mulder and his mother when Bill decides to stay in Washington. One shot.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Teena Mulder
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	The Mulder Experiment

His house is a tombstone against the sky, which shines phosphorescent as it clings to the last rays of sun. Relief at the dark windows brings goose bumps on Mulder’s arms and he pedals faster. His father has decided to stay in D.C. Rather than mowing the lawn and mediating between his parents, the weekend now holds enormous possibility, with both permission and money granted by a loose wave of his mother’s hand, and no question of a curfew.

He finds his mom at the kitchen with a full ashtray before her. The long ash from her lit cigarette falls as the door slams behind him. He slips into his seat, lithe and silent, and she blinks slowly at him.

‘Fox,’ she says tentatively. ‘I made dinner.’

‘It looks great, Mom,’ Mulder says, his mouth already full as he stabs his meatloaf with his fork. Still in track gear, he shivers as he pours ketchup over his plate. ‘Thanks for waiting. I told you I’d be late, right?

Teena doesn’t reply. She eats with delicate precision: slice, balance, lift, chew. The repertoire reminds Mulder of his sister’s jewellery box ballerina: contained, graceful, captivating, only to stop as soon as she is able.

‘How was baseball?’ Teena asks.

‘Track, Mom,’ Mulder corrects through a mouthful of mashed potato. ‘I’ve been doing track since last year. It was good. Coach thinks my distance is the two hundred, but I feel more comfortable with the four hundred.’

‘Four hundred meters?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Goodness, Fox,’ Teena says, putting her knife and fork together over a plate of half-finished food. ‘That’s a long way.’

‘Mulder, Mom, remember?’ He asks, putting his hand over hers. Coach had been the first to call him Mulder, and he liked the distance it created between himself and the self he projects. Mulder is enigmatic and plays by his own rules; Fox is the boy with the shrinking family. ‘Sure, four hundred meters is a long way, but I think I can keep up the intensity. I like the symmetry of a whole lap. You end where you start.’

Mulder has never seen his mother take anything, but he knows her unblinking gaze has a chemical influence. Thursdays are a challenge for them both with the uncertainty around whether Bill Mulder will choose to return, and this is not unexpected.

‘You end where you start,’ she murmurs after a moment, shaking her head with a sad smile. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice.’

Not wanting to indulge her mood, Mulder pushes his empty plate away and sits back. Their favoured communication is through the many layers of silence. His mother wraps herself in her a comfortable fog, and Mulder wills her to stay there.

‘I’ll clear up if you like,’ she says, and he understands her granted permission to go upstairs to his preferred solitude.

Mulder turns the shower on as hot as he can manage in an effort to get warm. He lifts his face to the stream and remembers how perfectly the curve of Brydie’s boobs had sat in his palms as they had kissed by the bike sheds after track. He can still feel the weight of them, the way her nipples had tightened as his fingers brushed them. His dick is hard, and he imagines what Brydie might taste like as he jerks off. His chest is pink and raw as he leaves the shower. Light-headed, he wonders if he might go for a run in the dull warmth of a late-Summer night, but when the cold air hits him as he leaves the bathroom, he realises he can’t be bothered.

There’s a certain adrenaline rush achieved from doing battle with a deadline and coming out on top. An exhilaration that Mulder suspects might also be gained through sex or drugs, a hypothesis he’s keen to prove if ever he gets the chance to try either. Until such a day, he resigns himself with the high of receiving an A on the homework he completed at 3am the night before it’s due. His father expects A grades. His mother is happy as long as she can look up in a room and find him there. This extra challenge is purely for Mulder. The nervous tension towards the task, the exhaustion as late night turns into early hours, the relaxation as he lays his head down for a brief three-hour slumber, it’s all a reminder that there is more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in his family’s philosophy.

Rather than start his homework, Mulder takes a crumpled article from his pocket which he had ripped from the newspaper in the school library. The article outlined how four men in Allagash, Maine, had become disoriented when their fire burned out, leaving them without means to sanitise water, and the emphasis was on proper safety when camping in the wild. What caught Mulder’s attention were the similarities to the Hill abduction case of the early sixties: this incident also included lost time, during which the fire was extinguished, as well as persistent and suspicious bright lights in the sky. Though not overtly a case of alien abduction, this incident fits a pattern he has yet to fully decipher. He files the article in a folder with other such oddities and unexplained phenomena.

At ten thirty, he ventures downstairs to a spotless kitchen. The flicker of the television dances like flames on the dim walls of the den. Teena sits upright in her chair, feet firmly on the floor and hands clasped on her lap around an empty glass. The only indication that anything is amiss is her head lolling on her left shoulder. Mulder rinses out her glass, leaving the gin-soaked lemon in the sink, and exchanges the television for the warmth of the table-top lamp. He gently shakes his mom’s shoulder. She grips his arm immediately, fingers deep and desperate, as she lifts her head in confusion.

‘It’s ok, Mom,’ Mulder soothes. ‘It’s time for bed. Let’s go upstairs, ok?’

She nods, and her eyes wander around the room as he helps her stand. The ascent to her bedroom is slow as she pauses to find her footing or brace herself on the bannister. Mulder guides her past the smiling photos on the stairwell. Past his first day at school, past Samantha’s Little League win. Past toothless grins and arms full of people. The gap which was waiting for his bar mitzvah photo is still empty, a month before Mulder’s sixteenth birthday. 

‘Have you ever heard of Phillip Zimbardo?’ Teena asks suddenly. Mulder shakes his head as he focuses on her feet on the stairs. ‘The Stanford prison experiment. They made people prisoners and they made people guards to see what would happen. I’ve been reading about it, you know. After the breakfast is done. People can make awful decisions. People can turn into monsters if the structure is right.’

For a brief moment Mulder sees the bright, inquisitive woman he remembers from childhood. The woman who always taught him to ask why. The woman cheated out of reaching her potential by virtue of her birth year and the events of her life. Mulder wishes he knew what to ask her to help her hang on to this clarity.

‘Don’t tell your father,’ she mumbles, and the familiar thickness of tongue cloaks her speech once more.‘Almost there, Ma,’ he whispers, and kisses her hair.

In her room, he pulls back the quilt and kneels as Teena sits on the bed. She gives a lopsided smile and cups her hand to his cheek.

‘I just love you, Fox, you know that, don’t you?’ she asks. At the sight of tears in her eyes, Mulder looks at the floor with a mix of shame and disgust. He wonders how long until the CBS Late Night Movie. ‘There’s so much space here now, this awful house, but there’s still not enough room for it all.'

‘It’s ok, Mom.’

‘It sounds so silly, doesn’t it? I know it’s silly. But sometimes I wonder if I won’t burst with it all. What can I do? How can I still carry all this when there’s too much space in our house.’ Her voice cracks as she runs her hand through his hair. 'My two children.'

Years later, Teena will wean herself off Valium and alcohol, hardening herself until she becomes Niobe: a stone woman grieving for both her children in different ways. Mulder will miss these immediate years, when her wound is so exposed that it reopens and deepens with each season change, when the only way she can keep herself afloat is to push him under. Mulder will miss the urgency of her co-dependency as she determines that there is no returning to where she started.

But right now, Mulder can’t stand the exposure. He can’t bring himself to look at her grief, so grotesquely intertwined with his own.

‘I know,’ he says as he scoops her feet up onto the bed, forcing her to lie down. ‘I know.’

‘Don’t tell your father,’ Teena murmurs again as her eyes close. ‘He doesn’t like it when I talk so.’

Mulder holds his mother’s hand until her face slackens. Downstairs, he helps himself to a beer and turns on the TV just as ‘Theatre of Blood’ is starting. He considers his mother’s words – that people can turn into monsters if the structure allows – and wonders why she mentioned it. He promises to look up Philip Zimbardo and the Stanford Experiment in the school library on Monday. 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't hate Teena Mulder: whilst her actions and deception in the series is incredibly troubling, I view her as a victim of both the society in which she lived, and the actions and abuse of her husband. Not to say this wasn't awful for Mulder, but I wanted to look at what life is like for a teenager who is also the carer for a compromised parent. There's a gentleness combined with impatience, hurt, and shame, and I think this sums up Teena and Fox Mulder.


End file.
